(no subject)
So the army thing's progressing. I'm working on getting a waiver for a disqualifier (bad eyesight), but hopefully if that gets cleared, then I'm good.
I did the full physical last tuesday. That was... surreal. This is a half-assed write-up, because I want to get it down before I forget it all, but I'm off-balance because the last trip there (last night / this morning) broke my sleep cycle.
When you're joining any armed service, you get processed at a MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station). If you're in Fremont, you go to the San Jose MEPS. If you don't have a car or don't want to meet the group there at five AM, they put you up at a nearby hotel that they've contracted with specifically for that purpose. In this case, it's the Wyndham San Jose.
(Yeah. The same company I just spent the last few months bitching about and trying to escape. That's an omen right there, I think.)
You go there at about four or five in the afternoon, they sign you in with anywhere from 20 to 100 other people who are also going to MEPS the next day, and give you a ticket for dinner at the hotel (which, I gotta say, is really good. Ditto breakfast) and you're more or less on your own until the wake-up call the next morning at 3:45 AM. Dear god. Breakfast is at 4:15, and you're on the bus heading to the MEPS center by 5.
(I had a weird childhood, and I missed some basic life lessons that some people seem to get fairly early on. One of them is this: In the course of going through your life, you're going to encounter a lot of people that, after that conversation, you're never going to see again. I had two roommates, and met more than a couple of interesting, decent people, who were shipping out the next morning, or were joining different services, or wound up getting disqualified during processing. I'm used to people coming into my sphere and being around, at least conceptually (friend-of-a-friend, for instance) for a while.)
When you get to MEPS, it's a pretty efficient process. They security screen everyone, you stash your bag and anything you don't need in a storage closet, and they go down the line slapping nametags on people and evaluating where everyone needs to go. Shippers, or people who are there for their check-up physical before they get shipped out the next day, get priority. Then it's full-inspections (that's the first-time physical inspections), then walk-ins (people not brought in by a recruiter), then miscellaneous. People taking the ASVAB, people re-enlisting, people just there for minor details.
The physical isn't as big of a deal as I thought it was. Simple hearing test, simple eye exam and tests for color-blindness and depth perception (which is where I ran into trouble), a urine test, a series of range of movement exercises, and a private exam by a doctor.
(Ugh. The urine test. This is one part of the entry that I wanted to be at top form when I wrote it.)
So it's a government-mandated examination, which makes it a legal thing. Which means a urine test has to be witnessed by a doctor or qualified representative. And I was ready for that. I mean, yeah, I'm pee-shy, but I get over it quickly enough. But a place that can process 100 people a day becomes, out of necessity, pretty streamlined. And it's more efficient, if you have a limited number of doctors, not to keep one of them standing around in a bathroom any longer than you have to. So it's not just me and a doctor in there, it's also three other applicants.
Let me tell you, when you're in a room with three strangers and an impatient line in the hallway, it gets very quiet. You haven't heard an awkward silence until you've stood in a row of guys who are all waiting for the sound of liquid hitting a plastic cup.
Oh, did I mention there's a window in there? Not like "light, ventilation, etc", but basically a drive-in-window type setup that opened into the clinic room next door so samples could be passed through. It's on the same wall as the urinals, so there's no view unless someone leans all the way through, but still. It's a window. I noticed this after about thirty seconds of a very dry silence, and I noticed it because the doctor was exchanging small talk with one of the nurses on the other side. This did not help.
Eventually, and after more details which you don't really want or need to know (I drank like a whole damn gallon of water, eventually, for one thing), I managed to overcome the Pee Obstacle. That really was the most impressive thing I did that day, by the way. That bathroom door should've triggered the "Chariots of Fire" theme song when I came out.
(Part 2 later, 'cause I know you're curious.)
I did the full physical last tuesday. That was... surreal. This is a half-assed write-up, because I want to get it down before I forget it all, but I'm off-balance because the last trip there (last night / this morning) broke my sleep cycle.
When you're joining any armed service, you get processed at a MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station). If you're in Fremont, you go to the San Jose MEPS. If you don't have a car or don't want to meet the group there at five AM, they put you up at a nearby hotel that they've contracted with specifically for that purpose. In this case, it's the Wyndham San Jose.
(Yeah. The same company I just spent the last few months bitching about and trying to escape. That's an omen right there, I think.)
You go there at about four or five in the afternoon, they sign you in with anywhere from 20 to 100 other people who are also going to MEPS the next day, and give you a ticket for dinner at the hotel (which, I gotta say, is really good. Ditto breakfast) and you're more or less on your own until the wake-up call the next morning at 3:45 AM. Dear god. Breakfast is at 4:15, and you're on the bus heading to the MEPS center by 5.
(I had a weird childhood, and I missed some basic life lessons that some people seem to get fairly early on. One of them is this: In the course of going through your life, you're going to encounter a lot of people that, after that conversation, you're never going to see again. I had two roommates, and met more than a couple of interesting, decent people, who were shipping out the next morning, or were joining different services, or wound up getting disqualified during processing. I'm used to people coming into my sphere and being around, at least conceptually (friend-of-a-friend, for instance) for a while.)
When you get to MEPS, it's a pretty efficient process. They security screen everyone, you stash your bag and anything you don't need in a storage closet, and they go down the line slapping nametags on people and evaluating where everyone needs to go. Shippers, or people who are there for their check-up physical before they get shipped out the next day, get priority. Then it's full-inspections (that's the first-time physical inspections), then walk-ins (people not brought in by a recruiter), then miscellaneous. People taking the ASVAB, people re-enlisting, people just there for minor details.
The physical isn't as big of a deal as I thought it was. Simple hearing test, simple eye exam and tests for color-blindness and depth perception (which is where I ran into trouble), a urine test, a series of range of movement exercises, and a private exam by a doctor.
(Ugh. The urine test. This is one part of the entry that I wanted to be at top form when I wrote it.)
So it's a government-mandated examination, which makes it a legal thing. Which means a urine test has to be witnessed by a doctor or qualified representative. And I was ready for that. I mean, yeah, I'm pee-shy, but I get over it quickly enough. But a place that can process 100 people a day becomes, out of necessity, pretty streamlined. And it's more efficient, if you have a limited number of doctors, not to keep one of them standing around in a bathroom any longer than you have to. So it's not just me and a doctor in there, it's also three other applicants.
Let me tell you, when you're in a room with three strangers and an impatient line in the hallway, it gets very quiet. You haven't heard an awkward silence until you've stood in a row of guys who are all waiting for the sound of liquid hitting a plastic cup.
Oh, did I mention there's a window in there? Not like "light, ventilation, etc", but basically a drive-in-window type setup that opened into the clinic room next door so samples could be passed through. It's on the same wall as the urinals, so there's no view unless someone leans all the way through, but still. It's a window. I noticed this after about thirty seconds of a very dry silence, and I noticed it because the doctor was exchanging small talk with one of the nurses on the other side. This did not help.
Eventually, and after more details which you don't really want or need to know (I drank like a whole damn gallon of water, eventually, for one thing), I managed to overcome the Pee Obstacle. That really was the most impressive thing I did that day, by the way. That bathroom door should've triggered the "Chariots of Fire" theme song when I came out.
(Part 2 later, 'cause I know you're curious.)